What happened to the Voice of the Common Man?

There have been many changes since Danny Williams took office - but the most obvious one to me is VOCM talk shows.

VOCM's Joe Butler sold out to New Cap (publicly traded) and Danny's presence has reduced the effectiveness of the Open-Line forum.

Despite the "take it for granted" attitude of a couple of hosts - people like you and me participate in these forums to promote public debate of public policy.

During an election and even in-between - these programs used to provide 2 and 1/2 hours for the leaders to come on and take questions from the people. Since Danny has been elected - there has not been a full program dedicated to this. Four years and not once did the leaders of the parties spend 2 1/2 hours taking questions.

This is the first time in my memory that this has not happened during an election.

There has also been more rule changes for callers to the programs in the last 4 years than any other time in the past 12.

Geoff Meeker took VOCM to task on anonymous callers a while back - and rightfully so - because the last 4 years has been about "Danny Goons" anonymously questioning the bloggers or regular callers. There has been erroneous and slanderous comments made about me and other regular contributors - but who cares says VOCM.

Then there was the whole episode of Randy Simms wanting the employment history of three callers to open-line because his other employer - newspaper - suggested we were lobbyists.

The shows have become a forum for government Ministers and MHA's with pre-determined messages during CRA polling periods and a place for anonymous callers to question the integrity and purpose of callers who have contributed freely to the program for a decade and some of the very few who will question Danny publicly. The only other regular group nowadays are TONY - LIZ - MINNIE who call to promote the position of a Premier who has a popularity of between 70%-80%.

After the election is over let's see if VOCM will continue in this direction - or really be a forum of open and public debate.

The one thing I have really learned - you don't criticize VOCM and Steele with any different results than criticizing Danny Williams.